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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:29 pm Post subject: The consensus that isn't |
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Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming.
"By burning fossil fuels, man increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, for example, has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Dr. Allegre, a renowned geochemist, wrote 20 years ago in Cles pour la geologie.." Fifteen years ago, Dr. Allegre was among the 1500 prominent scientists who signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," a highly publicized letter stressing that global warming's "potential risks are very great" and demanding a new caring ethic that recognizes the globe's fragility in order to stave off "spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse."
n the 1980s and early 1990s, when concern about global warming was in its infancy, little was known about the mechanics of how it could occur, or the consequences that could befall us. Since then, governments throughout the western world and bodies such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have commissioned billions of dollars worth of research by thousands of scientists. With a wealth of data now in, Dr. Allegre has recanted his views. To his surprise, the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.
His break with what he now sees as environmental cant on climate change came in September, in an article entitled "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in l' Express, the French weekly. His article cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro's retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. "The cause of this climate change is unknown," he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the "science is settled."
Dr. Allegre's skepticism is noteworthy in several respects. For one, he is an exalted member of France's political establishment, a friend of former Socialist president Lionel Jospin, and, from 1997 to 2000, his minister of education, research and technology, charged with improving the quality of government research through closer co-operation with France's educational institutions. For another, Dr. Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution. His break with scientific dogma over global warming came at a personal cost: Colleagues in both the governmental and environmental spheres were aghast that he could publicly question the science behind climate change.
But Dr. Allegre had allegiances to more than his socialist and environmental colleagues. He is, above all, a scientist of the first order, the architect of isotope geodynamics, which showed that the atmosphere was primarily formed early in the history of the Earth, and the geochemical modeller of the early solar system. Because of his path-breaking cosmochemical research, NASA asked Dr. Allegre to participate in the Apollo lunar program, where he helped determine the age of the Moon. Matching his scientific accomplishments in the cosmos are his accomplishments at home: Dr. Allegre is perhaps best known for his research on the structural and geochemical evolution of the Earth's crust and the creation of its mountains, explaining both the title of his article in l' Express and his revulsion at the nihilistic nature of the climate research debate.
Calling the arguments of those who see catastrophe in climate change "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers," Dr. Allegre especially despairs at "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." The world would be better off, Dr. Allegre believes, if these "denouncers" became less political and more practical, by proposing practical solutions to head off the dangers they see, such as developing technologies to sequester C02. His dream, he says, is to see "ecology become the engine of economic development and not an artificial obstacle that creates fear." |
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2f4cc62e-5b0d-4b59-8705-fc28f14da388
More dissent. |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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Well, if the National Post says it it must be true. The NP is like Canada's FOX News.
All that aside:
We can debate/argue/complain about Global Warming till the cows come home. What those of us on the left should be arguing for is that cutting air pollution is more important in terms of health than stopping global warming. Anyone who lives in Asia should know that the most important thing is cleaning the air. If we allow this level of pollution to continue and increase we are dooming ourselves to unlivable cities. That is what we should be focusing on, decreasing pollution will have immediate benefits for everyone. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:16 pm Post subject: |
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Are you retarded? Probably, yes, however you didn't address my legitimate point at all: we should curb air pollution to save our lives and cities from choking pollution ala Beijing (most Chinese and INdian cities in fact).
You're a putz.
And yes the NP is a rag that only survived because rich conservatives (a criminal in one case) supported it.
And a Frenchman change his mind????? No say it isn't so. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
Are you retarded? Probably, yes, however you didn't address my legitimate point at all: we should curb air pollution to save our lives and cities from choking pollution ala Beijing (most Chinese and INdian cities in fact).
You're a putz.
And yes the NP is a rag that only survived because rich conservatives (a criminal in one case) supported it.
And a Frenchman change his mind????? No say it isn't so. |
The legitimate point is one that I have made on this site about 40 times, putz. However, I'm not a dishonest putz and don't believe we have to create a grand lie and label all those who disagree with the lie in Exxon's pocketbook (EFL) or of the same cloth as Fox (you) in order to get people to use less.
Technology, technology, technology. That is our only way out. Not Y2Kyoto or any other plan to limit consumption. Technology.
The National Post is the only paper in Canada that challenges the orthodoxy of the Lib/government institutions and ideologies. Of course those people who absorb propaganda like a sponge, like you, will think it bad. It must be hard for you. |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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| The National Post is the only paper in Canada that challenges the orthodoxy of the Lib/government institutions and ideologies. Of course those people who absorb propaganda like a sponge, like you, will think it bad. It must be hard for you. |
And now we know your political position. Do you also believe Adam and Eve lived with the dinosaurs? At least now I know not to engage you on any level that requires thinking or reading. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
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| The National Post is the only paper in Canada that challenges the orthodoxy of the Lib/government institutions and ideologies. Of course those people who absorb propaganda like a sponge, like you, will think it bad. It must be hard for you. |
And now we know your political position. Do you also believe Adam and Eve lived with the dinosaurs? At least now I know not to engage you on any level that requires thinking or reading. |
So, because I read the Post I'm a Christian creationist? Talk about the black/white us/them world view of the Canadian left. I'm an atheist.
My political position? I don't have one. Politics is lies from end to end. The left lies, the right lies and all around are cheerleaders like you screaming support for the lies of your team. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:41 pm Post subject: ... |
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Mr BJ,
Didn't you on another thread promise to examine the evidence provided to you "on the weekend when you had the chance"?
Please do respond in that thread rather than making a new one. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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Which thread was that? The link GAJ gave me?
I'll do what I please, as well.
I'm less concerned with the science than the politicization of the science by the Left. And the annoying way that the left groups all in opposition with Fox, exxon etc.
There is no consensus. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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But do we have the technology?
Should I keep smoking a 100 a day and wait for an iron lung.
You both have a strong point that no one seems to be doing very much about.
We should cut down on pollution( and the word putz) and we need more investment in greener technologies, fairly obvious things. What we do as individuals will also count, expecting governments to fix our problems isn't the wisest course. I kinda doubt these technologies will come about until some mass environmental destruction has made its course across the globe. However my trust is more in science than governments, but trust ain't enough.
Al Gore save us!! |
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